Since then, he and Phoebe have been inseparable. He’s taken her with him on trips to Washington, Arizona, and Santa Barbara, California. She attended his grandmother’s 90th birthday and saw Jurassic World with him in theaters. She’s ridden in bicycle baskets and backpacks, visited rivers and beaches, and been to many a bar. She joined the Byerses when they went to view Christmas decorations last year, and she once rode atop a tiny toy train. In many ways, Phoebe’s life posthumously has been more thrilling and adventurous than it was when she was alive.
Back then, she was one of three dogs the family owned, the other two being black labradors named Lucy and Licorice.
The Byerses took her in from family friends in California who couldn’t keep her because their dogs didn’t get along. Though a bit fearful, Phoebe generally got along with people, but not with any dogs outside of her pack.
“She was not the friendliest to other animals,” Byers said. “And if you were a male wearing a hat, she was not hyped about you either.”
Even though she was “technically” his sister’s dog, Byers started getting close with Phoebe in the last year of her life.
When he got his tonsils removed at the age of 18, Byers spent “like two weeks or so” recovering at home and bonding with the terrier. She grew comfortable enough with him to jump on his lap and cuddle next to him in bed.
“She helped me through a lot of medical stuff when she was alive,” he said. “And that sort of sticks.”
Since starting My Dead Dog And Me, he’s received a mixture of derision and mirth from people online who either think what he’s doing is hilarious or sacrilegious. Some, tickled by photos of the taxidermy dog stuffed in airplane overhead bins and bicycle baskets, have sent messages thanking him for making them laugh “for the first time in months.”
Others have said it’d be too hard to be reminded of their deceased pet on a daily basis.
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